Your Elected Friend

MLS and Association leadership brings forth an unusual ‘changing of friends’ on an annual basis. It is in the spring of each year that we begin to see these friendships take hold as CEOs arrive at NAR Midyear with their new Board Chairman in tow. It is all part of an important synthesis that takes place in our industry – one that often goes unappreciated. For five or more weeks each year, CEOs are on the road with their Chairman, building a friendship that is pivotal to a successful year, and in some cases, lasting a lifetime. WAV Group strategic [...]

Managing MLS Channel Conflict

On the business-to-business side of real estate, there are entities that cooperate with one another that also compete with one another. A common term for this in modern business management is a neologism called coopetition. Brokers competing against each other participate together in the MLS to share information and offer of compensation; and may be related to the same franchise. Agents who compete with each other participate in Associations of REALTORS and are often members of the same brokerage or franchise. Associations who compete with each other sometimes cooperate in offering MLS services. Within this system of collaboration, there are [...]

Brokers harvesting business from their data

Real estate brokerages are way behind in the curve of excellence in lead management. This report is not about best practices of routing leads to agents, it is focused on measuring lead quality, and appending lead information with business intelligence that will convert more leads to drive more revenue. WAV Group’s brokerage business is focused on enterprise brokers, 500 agents or more – and usually a brokerage that also has some type of relationship with a mortgage or an insurance company. We use the term “home services” or “ancillary services” to refer to a brokerage that provides a full suite [...]

Indiana Regional MLS Is Born

In a press release yesterday, Indiana Regional MLS announced the selection of LPS as the vendor for consolidating 13 MLS systems into one. The effort was led by Kevin McQueen of Focus Forward Consulting. McQueen successfully managed to get 13 different MLSs serving an aggregate of 5000 subscribers to combine their MLS. The subscribers should be very excited about this. It is likely to reduce their costs and improve their services. There will be some bumps along the way as they accomodate change - but this is a great opportunity to advance the industry. Well done by all! There is [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:41-07:00February 23rd, 2013|Main category, MLS Insights|1 Comment

Is the MLS In Danger?

I do not really know Alain Pinel as well as I would like to. He sold the company that bears his name and pursued other interests. He is back now and runs the Luxury division of Intero Real Estate, one of Alain Pinel Real Estate's chief competitors in San Jose, along with Coldwell Banker and others. What I do know of Alain Pinel I like and respect a lot. I have a similar level of respect for the maverick efforts of Intero, who used passion combined with technology (AgentAchieve) to launch a powerful brokerage in a very competitive marketplace. In a [...]

Broker Profitability POD concept

This may be the real future of real estate brokerage. You will need to endure a series of short product stories to understand the POD concept for real estate brokerage. The coffee industry hit a home run with coffee pods. As it turns out, consumers would be happy to pay more for coffee if they do not need to deal with filters, scoops, and cans. The coffee pod industry was able to sell less coffee for a higher price by offering convenience. The pod revolution did not end with coffee. The rather smart dudes and dudettes at P&G took one [...]

The Role of Mortgage on Broker Dollar

Only the largest brokerages in a given region provide loan solutions through joint ventures or wholly owned mortgage companies. This provides these companies with a distinct advantage in many areas of providing a full array of consumer services around home ownership. For these companies, it is a generous source of additional revenue and the consumer loves the convenience. The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that independent mortgage banks earned between $2150 and $2450 profit per loan in 2012. The average production profit in basis points ranged between 107 and 120. The average production was between 1700 and 2000 loans per quarter. [...]

Technology Tools Used by Great Office Managers

All too frequently companies focus on broker tools or agent tools, losing sight of the tools used by great managers. Brokers who truly understand the value of office managers dedicate resources to deliver manager tools that drive company success and agent productivity. These tools fold into three categories: Market Analysis, Sales Analysis, and Agent Effectiveness. Market Analysis Tools Market Analysis involves using tools like Terradatum Broker Matrix or Trendgraphix. These tools give office managers access to two specific measurements that are key to success: Competitor Sales Volume and Agent Sales Volume relative to market pace. The first is a competitive [...]

Cindy Miller joins NTREIS

WAV Group had the opportunity to work with North Texas Real Estate Information Systems in 2012, facilitating the company's strategic plan. NTREIS is among the largest MLS service providers in the nation, and probably covers more square miles of real estate than anyone (not fact checked). It is a great organization with a popular governance model that establishes each Association of REALTORS® as the MLS Service provider to their members, powered by NTREIS. The Associations are the first line of support, training, and billing to the agents. During our project, we had the opportunity to work closely with Cindy Miller [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:46-07:00December 4th, 2012|Main category, MLS Insights, Strategic Planning|0 Comments

Data Only Brokers

There are lots of brokers who subscribe to MLS services. They are called participants, and as participants they are provided data rights beyond agents, and way beyond vendors or third parties. Moreover, participants are the nucleus of reciprocal offers of compensation, an agreement that if one broker represents a willing buyer and the other broker represents a willing seller, they will share compensation. There is a new brokerage model that has entered the MLS sphere, and I am not sure if it is a good thing or a bad thing. I will call this type of brokerage a "Data Only Broker" or [...]

CMLS brainstorms new approach for MLS Rules

The CMLS meetings (Council of MLS) were held on Wednesday, November 7th. There were numerous presentations but one in particular seemed to engage the Nation's leading MLS executives in attendance - ReThink MLS. The question before the panel was "What If We Started from Scratch?" As we all know, MLS rules (including Broker Reciprocity) provides structure for how brokers and agents will behave when sharing listings with one another: Two problems have arisen since these rules were first crafted more than a dozen years ago. The MLS rules have become cumbersome in length and somewhat unwieldy to manage and enforce. [...]

By |2018-05-03T21:24:47-07:00November 12th, 2012|Main category, MLS Insights, Strategic Planning|1 Comment

Attention Brokers – Learn how to take back the web from third parties!

While brokers have lots of technology tools at their fingertips today, a high impact website is still a critical tool driving success for any size real estate company.  Third parties continue to gain traction and traffic with consumers because they know what consumers are looking for and they deliver on their needs consistently!  If brokers want to become THE source for real estate consumers, they need to find ways to enhance and re-invent their own web presence. Brokers also need to learn about how to use their online presence to nurture new customer relationships for their agents. RED and RE [...]